Summary
From Frankie Howerd to Sherlock: Beryl Vertue is the producer of some classic TV shows including Men Behaving Badly. She took Steptoe and Son to America, negotiated for writer Terry Nation to retain some of the rights for his Dr Who Daleks creation, and back when she began in the 1960s, worked with a Who's Who of comedy writing talent at Associated London Scripts as well as representing Tony Hancock and Frankie Howerd as their agent. As chairman of the family firm Hartswood Films, her more recent projects have included revamping Dracula and Sherlock for TV. She discusses the successes and failures she has had in her six decade career with Matthew Sweet and shares with him what it was like working with Ken Russell and Tina Turner on Tommy and what she thinks makes a good deal.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
You can find other conversations about classic TV in the Free Thinking archives including Quatermass: Nigel Kneale's groundbreaking 1950s TV sci-fi series with Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, Una McCormack , Claire Langhamer and Matthew Kneale https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b03y The Goodies: Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Bill Oddie talk to Matthew Sweet about how humour changes and the targets of their TV comedy show which ran during the '70s and early '80s https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000hcb British TV and film producer Tony Garnett talks to Matthew Sweet about a career which encompassed the Wednesday Play for the BBC, This Life and Undercover. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07h6r8l
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps |
| 0:21.2 | it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream |
| 0:26.1 | van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds. |
| 0:32.0 | Let me do some virtue signalling. My name's Matthew Sweet and this edition of the Arts |
| 0:37.4 | and Ideas podcast |
| 0:38.3 | is all about one of the great figures in the history of television. She has a CV that goes back |
| 0:44.1 | to the mid-1950s and she's still in the game, a game that for her has involved Tony Hancock, |
| 0:50.2 | the Daleks, Spike Milligan and Sherlock Holmes. Meet Beryl Virtue after this message. |
| 0:56.0 | Hello, my name's Ian McMillan, |
| 0:57.7 | and before you slide into the podcast you were expecting, |
| 1:00.4 | let me tell you a little bit about my programme The Verbe, |
| 1:03.2 | Radio 3's Literary Festival, Language Cafe, |
| 1:05.7 | and Journey to the Centre of the Sentence. |
| 1:08.0 | We'll hear new poems and stories, |
| 1:09.8 | specially commissioned for the show, |
| 1:11.2 | and we'll ask the kinds of questions that writers really like to be asked, like, do you |
| 1:16.1 | use a pen or a pencil? No, I promise, we won't ask that one. I use a pen, by the way. Subscribe to |
| 1:21.9 | the verb on BBC Sounds. I wrote that with a pen. |
| 1:26.4 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 1:30.0 | I think the best way to convey the immensity of the career of Beryl Virtue |
| 1:35.1 | would be to ask you to imagine it as a kind of montage sequence. |
| 1:39.0 | We could start with her on the podium, accepting a lifetime achievement award, |
... |
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